Of Evolution, Laundry and Stubbing

As we all know, the most dangerous part of doing laundry is stubbing a toe. When trucking a full laundry basket through the house it is impossible to make sure your toes veer safely from marauding table and chair legs, bedposts, anvils and flag poles. As a result, Americans stub millions of toes each year while doing laundry. This is a scourge not talked about much in the media because it is too late to do anything about it. It didn't have to be this way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love doing laundry as much as the next guy. My intent is not to vilify the one activity that separates us from the animals and the hippies. In fact, I blame animals that stubbing our toes is even possible. Not that I blame all animals, only the predatory variety whose ancestors had the opportunity to take down our pre-human ancestors.

Crocodiles belong to an ancient species. They have been around forever. I’ll use them as an example of a predator that, with a little thought and foresight, could have helped us out a little bit as we evolved to take over the world and could easily wipe their species off the map right now if we opted thusly, and don’t you forget that Mr. Worm of the Stones. Nice shoes, by the way; are those alligator? I’m sure they had plenty of opportunities to snack on some of our pre-primate ancestors, such as the saber-toothed tree shrew back in the Paleocene epoch, for example. So, there we were, just a bunch of harmless saber-toothed tree shrews, minding our own business, dedicating our lives to the feeding of crocodiles as they launched themselves off the now extinct trampoline ferns, into our arboreal abodes, picking us off one by one, or maybe four by four if it was Bridge night, with a single chomp of their mighty mandibles. Did it ever occur to them to, instead of rudely engulfing us into their greedy mouths, maybe go after our toes? It does to me, but I guess I’m a little bit more of a creative killer than crocodiles. A sturdy poke from one of their teeth onto one of our cute little tree shrew toes, emulating a stubbing, would have rendered us defenseless, causing us to fall to the ground writhing in agony for a good minute and a half where we could be scooped easily and digested. Instead, many of us scurried away as soon as we heard the “booooiiiiinnngggg” of the trampoline fern. Doesn’t it make sense to you, crocodiles of the world, to incapacitate us first before attacking? Sure it does, now, after I’ve given you the gift of 20/20 hindsight. You just don’t THINK!

Not only would the crocs have had a more successful kill rate, they would have kept us in their good graces, making us less likely to look their way the next time we have a purse, shoe and belt shortage. Symbiosis is not just a word you read in a science book, you know. By having their adorable tootsies stubbed by crocodile teeth, those saber-toothed tree shrews with the hardier phalanges would have been able to endure the initial stubbing blow and been able to scamper away. Over time, only the stout-toed ones would survive to pass along their genes. Each generation would have had increasingly protective toes. Zippity-Zappity-Doo, by the time we humans evolved, we would have been fully equipped with toe hooves, which would have protected us from not only stubbing of toes, but he nips of kittens, dropped hammers, bad dance partners and asshole friends who like to step on your toes for absolutely no reason (what the hell is their problem - GOD!?) (Note: “zippity-zappity-doo” is a technical term used by Darwin to represent lapses in evolutionary development until he figured out how to describe in more detail what actually happened in a given species.) One simple concession by blood thirsty, moronic carnivores, who, as alluded, we, in our fabulously evolved state, could now turn into an exhausted resourse of stylish fashion accessories, if we opted thusly, could have bettered the lives of billions of human beings.

Instead, due to the lack of initiative of early crocodiles and other unimaginative predators of their ilk, we are left to fend for ourselves wielding only a decorative toe nail in this dangerous world of furniture and floor placed structures. Sure, the toe nail does provide some protection against dropping feathers and bug landings, or maybe a medium sized soap bubble, but it is no match for a table leg. Consequently, our rich people are forced to do laundry wearing steel toed boots, while the middle class and below must tough it out and live with the painful torment of ravaging stubs. It didn't have to be this way.